Introduction of business systems have enabled all sizes of businesses to benefit from technological advances. For example, a manager or other suitable business executive not particularly skilled in computers and their application can quickly and efficiently review data relating to a business with a few clicks of a mouse given an adequate business system. Moreover, many of today's business systems provide mechanisms for automatic or semi-automatic data trending and analysis, thereby delivering to a user structured data and analysis almost instantaneously compared to hours, days, or weeks such accumulation of data and analysis thereof would have required only a few years ago. Accordingly, business executives can make decisions based upon a reliable analysis from an accumulation of data. For a specific example, sales information with respect to disparate products can be compared/analyzed, wherein such comparison is utilized in connection with advertising strategies. Purchaser demographics, such as age of typical purchaser, gender of typical purchaser, etc. can be used and analyzed in connection with making various business decisions. Further development of business systems will only further improve general business practices.
Similar to technological advances furthering utilization and usability of business systems, advancements in technology have allowed many factory environments to become partially or completely automated in many circumstances, thus improving output in terms of both quality and efficiency. For example, applications that once required workers to put themselves proximate to heavy machinery and other various hazardous conditions can now be completed at a safe distance from such hazards. Further, imperfections associated with human action have been minimized through employment of highly precise machines. Many of these factory devices supply data related to manufacturing to databases that are accessible by system/process/project managers on a factory floor. For instance, sensors can detect a number of times a particular machine has completed an operation given a set amount of time. Further, sensors can deliver data to a processing unit relating to system alarms. Thus, a factory automation system can review collected data and automatically and/or semi-automatically schedule maintenance of a device, replacement of a device, and other various procedures that relate to automating a process.
While there is a substantial amount of data generated at a factory floor and viewable within a factory automation system, there is currently not a mechanism for directly transferring such industrial data to a business system. For instance, data generated in a factory environment and within an industrial automation system may be desirably relayed to a business system and reviewed by an executive in a business context rather than within an industrial context. Conventionally, middleware must be adopted to receive data from the industrial automation system and transform it to enable compatibility with a business system. Such middleware is expensive to design and implement, both in terms of man-hours and monetary costs. Further, if alterations are made to the business system and/or the industrial automation system, middleware that facilitates transactions between the systems will require modification by an expert in computer programming.
The aforementioned middleware also is subject to failures in communication, and further lacks sufficient security for communications/transactions between an industrial automation system and a business system. For example, conventional middleware systems do not enable complete rollback when a transaction has been completed. For instance, the business system can request certain data from the industrial automation system via the middleware. The middleware can then transform the data in order to render such data compatible with the business system. Thereafter, the business system can issue a confirmation of receipt, which is first handled by the middleware and then relayed to the industrial automation system. Accordingly, if there is a loss of power or other corruption that occurs while the middleware is operating on data, one party to the transaction may believe the operation is completed while the other party has not received data or completed the transaction. And as middleware is involved, conventional transactions between business systems and industrial automation systems cannot be rolled back (e.g., the transaction cannot be cancelled and re-started from the beginning). Furthermore, as additional software is required to complete transactions, security breaches can occur with respect to such additional software. Thus, a business system can validly request data from an industrial automation system, which is then delivered to middleware. The middleware, however, may have been subject to a security breach, thus delivering corrupt data to the business system. Therefore, the business system believes that it has received valid data when, in actuality, the data has been corrupted.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art for a system and/or methodology for directly delivering communications between business systems and industrial automation systems.